Lost's Damon Lindelof says he was "asked to leave the Star Wars universe"

As far as big media brands go, Star Wars—and we’re thinking specifically of Disney’s Star Wars here—has gotten pretty comfortable with firing people over the last few years. In recent memory, we’ve got Colin Trevorrow getting booted off of the eventual Episode IX; Josh Trank losing his gig on one of the untitled spinoffs; Phil Lord and Christopher Miller getting shit-canned from their own version of Solo: A Star Wars Story. It’s become very clear over the last little while that Disney giving you a Star Wars movie doesn’t mean the company won’t feel just as comfortable taking it right away.

Enter (and then swiftly exit) Lost and The Leftovers’ Damon Lindelof, who had a bit of a whirlwind employment romance with the franchise over the last six months, having been announced to be writing a mysterious Star Wars movie project last October, and then announced to be leaving said project again last month. At the time, Linedlof and fellow writer Justin Britt-Gibson were said to have “dropped out” of the project, after Lindelof had previously expressed some uncertainties about his fitness for it A new interview with Esquire, though, reveals that, yeah: The prolific TV creator got fired.

Fielding questions from Esquire readers, Lindelof laughs at the idea he’d merely been “in talks” with Star Wars. “I was in more than talks to join the Star Wars universe,” Lindelof said. “I joined the Star Wars universe.” And then: “I was asked to leave the Star Wars universe.” Lindelof doesn’t go into any specific details about the termination; he’d previously told a crowd at SXSW that the “degree of difficulty” on a Star Wars project was incredibly high. But he also states that he’d take another shot at it in a heartbeat, even getting in a Yoda joke to show no hard feelings. Meanwhile, he’s on the promotional tour for his new series, Peacock sci-fi series Mrs. Davis.